Over on the Call of Duty: Elite blog, Black Ops 2 combat designer Anthony Flame and lead artist Murad Ainuddin discussed the Peacekeeper at length to assure players that it wouldn’t be an over-powered monster.

The gun was designed to combine SMGs and assault rifles – the game’s leading gun classes – into a hybrid futuristic weapon. Ainuddin said of its design, “Based on Anthony’s direction of creating a hybrid assault rife and SMG, we designed the Peacekeeper to have a compact rifle look. We also wanted to give a base white finish to provide a stark contrast from all the other weapons in Black Ops II, but also in Call of Duty history.

“We chose a lot of synthetic polymers and lightweight materials to make up the surface look to represent that near-future “hotness.” We want players to feel like this is a familiar weapon, but one they’ve never seen before.”

Although it has”hotness”, it isn’t a spammy weapon, stated Flame, “The Peacekeeper is a Submachine Gun-Assault Rifle Hybrid. It has the lightweight design of an SMG, but with better range and accuracy at the cost of close quarters firepower. It’s a great weapon for objective modes like Hardpoint, where you need to quickly get into position and cover objectives from a safe distance.”

He added, “For the Peacekeeper, we wanted to give players a high mobility weapon that wasn’t just meant for close quarters, which will open up more medium and long range firefights. Internally, the team has been having a blast with the Peacekeeper on the new maps.”